Just a few weeks before the UFC closed its doors as the world stood still because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, fans got to witness one of the greatest fights in the promotion’s history at UFC 248.
On March 7, 2020, the UFC returned to the T-Mobile Arena as then-middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya defended his title in the UFC 248 main event against Yoel Romero.
Unfortunately, that fight flopped badly and is widely considered one of the most boring fights in UFC history.
Despite that, the main event saw a five-round war for the women’s strawweight title as Weili Zhang looked to defend her strap against the consensus weight class GOAT, Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Weili Zhang leaves Joanna Jedrzejczyk unrecognizable after five round war
After racking up five title defenses in the division, the Pole earned her title as the greatest strawweight fighter of all time but her reign came to an unfortunate end in 2017 when she was beaten by Rose Namajunas.
Several fights later where he couldn’t string together back-to-back wins, she was handed another title shot at UFC 248 in what was Weili’s first title defense.
Ahead of the fight, Zhang had to overcome multiple obstacles in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and even had to change the location of her camp several times so that she could attain a US visa.
Although Joanna was deemed to be nearing the end of her career because of her string of results leading up to the title fight, there was still a wide understanding that because of her skill, she could still be a huge threat.
From the opening horn, the former strawweight Queen showed that she was exactly that, instantly bringing the fight to ‘Magnum’ Weili.
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After two amazing rounds, Weili began to land clean strikes on the forehead of Joanna midway through the third round, visibly causing swelling.
Come the fifth and final round, Jedrzejczyk looked completely unrecognizable as her head had doubled in size and she was wearing the damage of five incredibly tough and close rounds.
Weili went on to retain the title with a split decision win with the fight considered one of the greatest fights ever and by far the greatest female MMA fight in the sport’s history.
What’s next for Weili Zhang?
Fast forward four years and after losing and regaining the strawweight title, the 35-year-old champion still reigns over the 115lb division.
Earlier this year at UFC 300, Zhang defended her title in one of the biggest female fights ever as she took on fellow countryman, Yan Xiaonan.
Weili successfully defended her title after dominating Xiaonan for five rounds. It was recently announced that ‘Magnum’ will defend her title at UFC 312 on February 8 against the undefeated Tatiana Suarez.
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